Archive for February, 2012

Intel's Atom Z2460 Medfield processor for mobile devices will struggle to compete with ARM-based chipsets such as the Snapdragon S4, Qualcomm's product chief insists, with the new x86 being more the product of desperation than inspiration. "Intel is very smart and very dedicated" Sy Choudury, director of product management at Qualcomm told us in an interview at Mobile World Congress today, "they can't afford not to have a [mobile] product line." However, Choudury thinks Intel has underplayed the challenge it faces by contrasting Medfield with existing, mainstream ARM chips like Qualcomm's own Scorpion. "They're getting better, but so are we."

Nathanial Stehley is one lucky guy. All he had to do was pre-order the game Mario Kart 7 for 3DS to win a life-size racing kart themed after the long-running Mario franchise. And, get this, it actually works. The legality of actually taking it onto public roads is probably a different issue, though. Nevertheless, it's pretty cool.

Toshiba has announced that its Excite 10 LE tablet, formerly called the Excite X10, will be arriving in stores March 6, coincidentally just one day ahead of the iPad 3 event. Perhaps due to the extreme bulkiness of the Toshiba Thrive, the company has taken a 180 with the Excite 10 LE, designing it to be the world's thinnest and lightest tablet. Toshiba had originally said the tablet would launch sometime in February, but perhaps waited for more iPad 3 speculation to be confirmed.

Raspberry Pi sold out in the UK in just two hours, and global buyers of the $35 computer also face a wait for their open-source PC with international sales also burning through the start-up's initial supplies. The Raspberry Pi Model B went up for grabs at element14 earlier, promptly running out and forcing would-be buyers to register their interest for the next batch.

Despite recent reports that Intel's next-gen Ivy Bridge chips may see an 8- to 10-week delay, which pushes the release back to June, insider sources say that Apple may still be launching the much rumored MacBook Pro refresh as early as April. Intel has staggered its shipments before and may give Apple a head start with about 900,000 units, according to DigiTimes' sources in Apple's upstream supply chain.

Facebook has launched Timeline-style profile Pages for brands, with larger photos, a greater emphasis on your own friends' activity on that Page, and news pinning. The update, which brings brand Pages in line with personal Facebook Timeline profiles, also includes a new activity log and administration hub, making it easier to track engagement and respond to private messages.

The leader in viral video sharing has been working on automatic transcription of videos for nearly six years, though until now it's probably been used just as much as a tool of amusement as it has for people who legitimately need closed captioning. This week, Google made it easier for the video creators to add captions to their content at the point of submission.

This week the Windows 8 Consumer Preview event showed the system on everything from a ten-inch tablet to a massive Gorilla Glass toting television as wide as the average human is tall. We've seen Lenovo devices, dual-screen monitors showing an ultra-massive set of screens running Windows from a device small enough to fit in your purse, and your everyday average 15-inch display. NFC is being shown to be working right out of the box with Windows 8's Consumer Preview between Bluetooth devices, and on the whole there's no doubt that Microsoft is coming in strong with manufacturer partner heat.

This week Michael Angiulo of Windows Planning held aloft an early build of a device made to show off Windows 8 Consumer Preview running on an ARM-based architecture - namely NVIDIA's own Tegra 3 quad-core SoC. Also on stage was a device running Texas Instruments OMAP 5, Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4, and an Intel Clover Trail tablet as well. As Angiulo held the Tegra 3-toting tablet on stage he noted, "It's not only great for browsing the web, its great for apps as well."

Not only can you chat with friends, play games with one another, buy something from your favorite store, and connect with Skype video calling on Facebook, you can also send and receive money from the social networking platform as well. PayPal pioneered that aspect of the site, but now its up-and-coming rival from American Express is stepping into the arena as well.